The present invention relates to an electron-beam lithography system or, more particularly, to a multicolumn electron-beam lithography system, having a plurality of electron-beam exposure systems, which offers an improved throughput.
Semiconductor integrated circuits now tend to have circuit elements thereof integrated to a higher degree due to advances in microprocessing technologies. The performance of the microprocessing technologies is becoming better. Above all, photolithography technology that is implemented in, for example, a conventional step-and-repeat photolithography system with demagnification, is expected, to reach its limits. Electron-beam lithography technology has the potential to take over from photolithography technology and become the new standard microprocessing technology. Electron-beam lithography technology is drawing attention as a next-generation lithography technology.